Commodities manufactured by influential manufacturers, so-called big-name brands are often produced and sold by just copied or in similar form with brand names by others. This distribution of the false brand-name products in the market creates big social problem. Among the false brand-name products, some of them can be identified at a first glance that they are not authentic products, while some are manufactured so elaborately that it is often difficult to identify that these products are not authentic.
Also, in some area, consumers are not very conscious in recognizing that the false brand-name products are illegitimate products, and the false brand-name products are distributed in the market while people know that these are false brand-name products. In recent years, more and more such types of false brand-name products are increasingly sold directly to the consumers via Internet not through the distribution channel.
Further, there are cases where a stolen vehicle is, while its registered vehicle number is altered, exported overseas, asserting that it is not a stolen vehicle.
To cope with such situations, the manufacturers or the sellers of authentic products prepare a certificate to certify that it is an authentic product and delivers the certificate together with the product to the purchaser. In the worst case, however, the certificate itself is forged.
Another method to prevent the forgery is to attach a tag with an embossed hologram, which is difficult to copy, to the authentic product to facilitate the confirmation of the product being authentic. However, the copying of the hologram tag is merely very difficult, and it is far from impossible to copy.
Moreover, the confirmation of the hologram is checked by visual inspection, i.e., by human sense. Because the confirmation is made by human sense, there are variations due to the ability of each individual to confirm. And further, even in case of the same person, there may be variation due to environmental conditions, psychological conditions, or physical conditions, and accordingly, its reliability is not high.
Further, when a skillfully falsified hologram is mounted on a product, it is almost impossible to confirm the authenticity of the product by human ability.
It is also practiced that an IC chip is attached on an authentic product, and the authenticity is confirmed by the digital data stored in the IC chip. However, by reading the digital data stored in the correct IC chip and by writing this in another IC chip, it is not very difficult to falsify the IC chip for confirmation.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H10-44650 discloses an authentication verifying chip, which verifies the authenticity of a card by using metal granules mixed in a transparent medium.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-29636 discloses another authentication verifying chip to verify the authenticity of a card by using fibers mixed in a transparent medium.
A method to verify the authenticity of a card automatically and not by human sense is described in the International Patent Publication WO2007/072793 filed by the applicant of the present invention.
An authentication verifying chip, an authentication verifying method and an authentication verifying device to verify the authenticity of a card by using an embossed hologram are described in the International Patent Publication WO2007/072794 filed by the applicant of the present invention.
An authentication verifying chip, an authentication verifying method and an authentication verifying device to verify the authenticity of a card by using fluorescent granules are described in the International Patent Publication WO2007/072795 filed by the applicant of the present invention.
An authentication verifying chip, an authentication verifying method and an authentication verifying device to verify the authenticity of a card by using radioactive granules are described in the International Patent Publication WO2007/072796 filed by the applicant of the present invention.
According to these prior inventions, it is possible to verify the authenticity of a card where authentication verifying chip is mounted. It is based on the assumption that the authentication verifying chip can be mounted, and that digital data of the authentication verifying chip thus mounted can be read.
However, it is actually impossible to mount an authentication verifying chip, where the digital data therein can be read, on a product, which is an object for the falsification. Thus, the technique to verify the authenticity of a product is not practically realized.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H10-44650
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-29636
[Patent Document 3] International Patent publication WO2007/072793
[Patent Document 4] International Patent publication WO2007/072794
[Patent Document 5] International Patent publication WO2007/072795
[Patent Document 6] International Patent publication WO2007/072796